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Saturday, 19 November 2016

The Cricket Club Dog

With the current Test match at Visakhapatnam being interrupted by a dog and with Christmas being just around the corner, I thought it would be give me another excuse for a shameless plug of my new book, The Definitive Guide to Club Cricket. The book is about the characters that inhabit every cricket club across the UK with 57 chapters covering various individuals. Virtually every club has a resident hound. Cricket clubs are great environments for our four legged friends and here is a chapter on the dog and a few other animals that are associated with club cricket. The book is available via Amazon at;

With a foreword by Yorkshire's Jack Brooks and proceeds helping Melanoma UK it will keep every club cricketer going over the festive period...

As Jack Brooks mentioned in the foreword of the
book, cricket clubs are wonderful environments to raise children in. However,
virtually every club across the land has a resident dog. My dog Moses is a
chocolate Labrador and has raided many a tea that an unsuspecting player has
put on the ground. His finest hour – taking an ice cream out of the hands of a
toddler – didn’t exactly endear me to the parents. He is terrified of our tea
lady who shouts at him whenever he goes anywhere near the kitchen and just
longingly gazes at the goodies that have been put out for the players.

Dogs come in all colours, shapes and sizes – a
bit like us clubbies – and their feeding habits are also of a similar nature.

Once a year I visit Hertford Cricket Club to
play a game in their cricket week and there is a resident chocolate Labrador
there who roams the outfield. Brilliantly, this dog has been trained not to
cross the boundary rope, although I did spot it once wandering across the
sightscreen behind the bowler’s arm.

Another dog, a Border Collie who spent time at
our cricket club in the 1990s, used to catch cricket balls in his mouth that
its owner would hit 40 or 50 yards with a cricket bat. The clunk of the ball on
tooth enamel as he caught it would send shivers down the spines of most
veterinary surgeons and, on closer inspection, a front row of chipped teeth adorned
this canine’s mouth.

One batsman I played with used to hit boundary
flags or anything else that was close by on the way off in a show of
frustration at a poor shot, although I noticed that he didn’t do this at one
Hertfordshire ground that had a sleeping Rottweiler next to the away dressing
room. His water bowl remained intact.

A cricket dog can have its uses too. A ball that
lands in the middle of a patch of stinging nettles is not one that many
fielders will volunteer to search for, but the dog has no fear. He will go and
retrieve it far quicker, thus not holding up the game for long. That is, if he
decides to give it back. Retrieving it is one thing, but giving it back is a
completely different kettle of fish for the cricket dog. A cricket dog can also
be useful if the ball does get lost. A quick chew from a Mastiff on one side of
the ball and you will find that reverse swing suddenly comes into the fray.
Man’s best friend and definitely an opening bowler’s.

It isn’t just the dogs that inhabit the clubs.
Neighbouring gardens can be the worst nightmare for a clubbie fielder who has
to venture into them to go and collect the ball. One of our number was once
chased out of a garden by the might of a Jack Russell but on hearing the bark
of a larger dog, many clubbies will give up the ghost and call for a spare ball
instead.

A common sight for club cricketers

Other animals have been known to reside in
cricket clubs, too. Unfortunately one poor hedgehog died having got stuck in
our netting and having been part of the food chain of a variety of North
London’s fauna, none of the boys wanted to take responsibility for untangling
poor ‘Sonic’ and putting him in the bin. Eventually he rotted away, and the
option of recycling him as one of the elderly members’ batting gloves was not
taken up.

At Highgate Cricket Club in the 1980s the
groundsman would save his energy and instead of mowing the pitch, he would
employ his three or four goats to keep the outfield short. At Bayford CC, I
pulled out of a delivery as a darting swallow whizzed past my head. Meanwhile
many clubs play host to angry wasps’ nests that tend to ruin the post-match
lager. In wet weather it isn’t unusual for ducks to become resident on the
temporary lakes of cricket grounds and even this season after a ball went into
bushes for a boundary, it was followed by a squawking moorhen and her young
family running off at speed in the other direction. Foxes have been known to
raid post-match barbecues, and all clubbies who play at a ground near water
will have been bitten by cricket club mosquitoes.

A cricket club dog might be responsible for
holding up play by running across the pitch, or causing the groundsman to
remove one of its turds from on a length, but dogs and cricket clubs go
together. It is a safe environment for them and they are part of the summer.